The Western Way, Part 2 - Jura to Oban The Adventure Show

Welcome to the Western Way - a long-distance walk that

starts at the Mull of Galloway, the most southerly point

in the country, and finishes in the Highland town of Oban.

I'm doing this new walk for one very simple reason, to celebrate

some of the finest landscape you'll find anywhere in the world.

That's a bold claim, but stay with me and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

The total distance of this new Western Way is 250 miles.

It's a route that's already taken me from sea level to mountain summit

and I've achieved two long-held ambitions,

to visit the volcanic island of Ailsa Craig

and the ancient seat of the Lords of the Isles on Islay.

It's been a memorable journey so far

and what lies ahead is no less exciting.

I've just taken the short ferry ride between Islay and Jura,

an island that I haven't set foot on for well over 30 years.

So for that reason alone I want to potter about a little bit for a

while and discover how much the island has changed

since the last time I was here.

And I've just realised that, psychologically at least,

I'm roughly about the halfway point on my journey along this Western Way.

I say psychologically because Jura is the final island on my journey,

and for that reason alone I think it will be well worthwhile just

lingering here for a bit longer.

The Mull of Galloway is a long way behind me

and I'm already at the halfway point.

Ahead is about 125 miles of great walking.

Once I've explored Jura, I head back to the mainland

and an area that deserves to be better know - the Cowal Peninsula.

Then I'm on familiar ground as I travel the West Highland Way

and onwards through the rugged Black Mount hills surrounding

Glen Kinglass,

some of the wildest land in the west,

before journey's end at Oban.

All that's still to come. First it's a return visit to somewhere special.

For two Scottish islands that are separately by only

a few hundred metres of water, it would be hard

to imagine two places that were so different.

Islay is fairly low-lying, is very fertile and is quite well-populated,

while Jura is mountainous, bare and relatively devoid of people.

Jura is the eighth largest island in Scotland,

yet in terms of population it's only ranked 31st.

For someone like me

who actively seeks out the wild places, these are the

ingredients of heaven on earth.

MAN WHISTLES

I'll be heading into the hills shortly,

but before I do

I want to find out more about this island. And who better

to tell me about what it's like to live and work here than Grant Rozga?

Come on.

He was born and brought up in Jura and has no plans to leave just yet.

I caught up with him as he worked on the family farm.

We've got about 100... 150 header, head o' yow.

We've just finished the shearing, actually, in the last few days.

Cattle-wise, we've got about 30, 35 cattle now.

Compared to Islay, it's not brilliant at all,

but you just really have to make do with what you can.

It's pretty good.

Some fields down behind you that we've brought back in

and it's getting there.

What was it like growing up? Did you ever feel

disconnected from the outside world?

Not disconnected, but I suppose it's just very different.

And in some ways we've maybe not got the opportunity to do certain

things that you've maybe got the chance in other places, but in other

ways it was just free-range here, we could just do what we wanted.

We were always on the beach or just knocking about on the farm or

whatever, always up to nonsense.

So where did you go to school, Grant?

In Craighouse, which every day that meant a trip over for my mum

and dad to Knockrome

and then the school bus would come up to Knockrome and down to Craighouse.

And then high school was a bit different,

obviously we went to Islay High School,

which entailed a ferry journey as well, which was pretty good

because some days if it was stormy we would all have our fingers crossed.

Going down to the ferry we would think, "This is the day we're

"going to miss this exam," or whatever.

So it was good, there was always a wee bit of drama.

After leaving school Grant studied sports therapy in Glasgow,

but he couldn't wait to return home.

And he's not someone to take this dramatic landscape for granted.

He's a hill runner and regularly takes part in the annual

Jura Fell Race, a gruelling run over seven mountain tops.

This year I managed to break the four hours -

you get a special wee cup

from the distillery for doing that, that's pretty good going.

But anyone who gets round the course is going well, is going well.

-It's a tough race.

-It's tough.

The terrain is just... it's very, very hard going.

The path isn't always there.

If you stray from the path at all it can be...you can get into trouble

quite quickly, especially if it's misty and the paths themselves are...

it's scree, there's small stones in with boulders and you've

got to be quite nimble to get out of the way if something's coming down.

The day is good, the fell race day itself,

but the things you see on the island -

it just blows you away.

No matter how many times you've been up, you see some great sights.

So despite the fact that you've lived your life here,

these natural attractions are still quite special to you, you still get excited by them?

Oh, definitely.

Put a rucksack on and a tent and just go for it for a few days.

There's always something new to see or... It's a stunning place.

There's more to Jura than just the elemental landscape.

There's a vibrant community too.

Over 15 years ago the local residents came together to

form a Development Trust,

with the aim of ensuring the long-term viability of the island.

But whilst looking ahead they are also celebrating the past,

making audio recordings of those with long-term connections

to the place.

It was an ambitious project that's since received a national award

and has preserved those memories for future generations.

We've just passed Sandy Buie's gate. We still say Sandy Buie's,

Sandy Darroch's, all the old folk that were here.

And we say Annie Campbell's house

or Burnside, or... The old names still stick, which is nice.

And Mrs Leonard's house, which is all derelict now,

but we still remember the people that lived there.

Heading up this oral history project is a comparative newcomer to Jura.

Jane Carswell came to the island six years ago

and welcomed the opportunity to delve into its roots.

Because it isn't my birthright knowing this place, it was

a complete surprise to me when I first turned up.

And now having got to know members of the community

so well, I feel really steeped in this place.

Can you give me an idea of some of the stories

that perhaps surprised you?

I remember interviewing one man who lived

way on the west coast of Jura in the late 1920s.

When the war came along he had to, with his uncles,

go over to the west coast and, sort of, look out for bodies.

There was tremendous wreckage then.

You can't visualise, no use even trying to visualise it.

It was piled mountainous high with wood

and stuff from ships that were getting torpedoed.

And quite a few bodies were washed ashore too,

dragged above high-water mark.

We used to cover them with wreckage and driftwood and that

and inform...the police.

The procurator fiscal used to come and take them over by horse

and sledge.

Most of them were taken away,

but there was one chap, a Norwegian, he was buried in Inverlussa...

for a good number of years in the cemetery at Inverlussa.

But the war graves came eventually, I think

it was only about maybe 25 year ago...

they dug up the graves

and took him away to Norway where he belonged to.

How important is it to have these collections

available for generations in the future?

I think it's really important.

I don't think you can appreciate a place unless you know its history.

You understand what you've got in common with people,

what they've been through, the unique things about their lives

and also the common human experiences.

And because it's voices, people's voices, they're telling you

first-hand what's happened to them and it's incredibly powerful.

I'm always fascinated to discover the history behind the landscape.

Yet for me, these places really come alive when I walk out into them

with just myself and my tent.

I've just been looking for a nice flattish bit of ground.

The ground here is a wee bit tussocky and a wee bit rough,

but I've got a nice soft airbed,

which should, hopefully, even out any sort of bumpy ground.

And it's great on a long walk like this.

I tend to mix it between bed and breakfasts and camping,

but camping is my preference, I have to say.

You don't have to worry about being locked out at night.

You don't have to worry about noisy neighbours in the next room.

You just have to make the usual kind of decisions when camping -

which way to put the door so that I get a nice view in the morning,

and I think I'll turn it round so that I'm looking out to Islay.

There is a bit of a trend at the moment for an outdoor activity

called wild camping...

..almost as though something new.

But people have been wild camping since time immemorial and it's been

called various things over the years,

but today it's known as wild camping.

Wild camping on the slopes of the Paps of Jura.

And I know simply by saying that there'll be people all over

the country drooling at the very thought of it.

WIND WHISTLES

I decided to set up camp early today because I want to spend

the afternoon climbing a little hill that I want to use as a viewpoint.

In hillwalking circles Jura and the Paps of Jura are synonymous.

These three very fine mountains, each of them over 2,500 ft,

Beinn a' Chaolais, Beinn an Oir and Beinn Shiantaidh.

And the curious thing about these three hills is wherever you see them

from the mainland it always appears that there's only two of them.

It's almost as though there's one hiding behind the other two

and I've seen them so many times from various points on the mainland

and I've thought, "That must be the Paps of Jura but it can't be

"because I can only see two."

So today I want to climb this little hill where hopefully I'm going

to see the three of them and I want to take a photograph and with a

bit of luck that photograph could be a rarity.

The hill you can see behind me here

is Beinn a' Chaolais, it's the most westerly of the Paps of Jura.

And Pap is an unusual word, it's from the Norse and it means breasts,

so it's probably quite unusual that there's more than two of them,

there's actually three of them here.

I first climbed the Paps of Jura way back in 1973, would you believe?

And I often wonder why I've never come back to Jura since then.

I think it's partly

because there's this feeling that Jura is very remote.

It's actually no further north than Glasgow,

but it could be, by the feel of it, somewhere between Scotland

and Greenland and it does have that feeling of remoteness.

But it's a wonderful island and it's just fantastic to be back here.

I feel as though these hills are playing with me,

they're enticing me.

Every so often they almost reveal themselves, reveal something of

their beauty, and then they suddenly just cover themselves up again.

Just when I thought I was finally going to be in a position to

get a photograph of all three Paps of Jura it looks as

though they've decided not to allow it.

Mountains can be so coy and contrary.

It's absolutely pointless

trying to take photographs in this sort of foggy murk.

When the mountains go into this sort of mood there's absolutely

nothing you can do about it.

I'm so disappointed.

I guess it's a good excuse to come back another time, but I'm not

going to leave it another 30 years.

In fact, I can't!

Well, that's me

completed the islands section of this Western Way walk

and what a memorable

section it's been, on the islands of Holy Isle, Arran, Islay and Jura.

I've just taken the ferry from Tarbert Loch Fyne across to

Portavadie in the area of Cowal.

And, you know, it's an area I don't really know very well,

but it does feel like coming onto another island.

There's an atmosphere of isolation,

that it's hidden away from civilisation, and yet it's only

half an hour, as the eagle flies, from Greenock.

The fickle finger of fate

has been instrumental in the development of the Portavadie area.

Back in the 1970s, the Scottish Office identified

Portavadie as one of the areas in Scotland for mass industrialisation.

They wanted to build giant concrete oil rigs

here off the coast of Loch Fyne.

A great big hole was dug

and some say it was the deepest hole in Europe.

A whole block of houses was built to house all the workers.

And then overnight someone had the bright idea it would be much

better to build oil rigs out of steel rather than concrete

and the whole proposal vanished.

The ghost town lay as a festering sore on the Portavadie landscape

for many, many years, until 2009,

when someone had the idea of using the site as a yachting marina.

In 2010, the whole development was opened,

with luxury accommodation, holiday homes and a top-class restaurant.

It's totally transformed the whole of this area.

Other than the ghost town,

a ghost town in which no-one has actually ever slept.

You know, I can't think of a better way of exploring this

whole area of Cowal than by following the 57-mile-long Cowal Way

that runs from Portavadie to Inveruglas on Loch Lomondside.

The area of Cowal is named after one of the chiefs

of the four ancient tribes of the Kingdom of Dalriada

and the area is sequestered from the rest

of the Scottish mainland by Loch Fyne and Loch Long

and the great barricade

of mountains at its northern end that are known as the Arrochar Alps.

And it's this accessibility by sea that made this such a populous area

from prehistoric times right through to late medieval times.

Today, it's a lovely quiet area of low-lying hills, lovely glens

and lots of natural woodland and forests.

But it's full of all those little secret places where you can go

and hear the echoes of those former times.

And I'm reminded of that just a few miles into the Cowal Way.

This is Asgog Castle.

It was built in the middle of the 15th century by the Lamont clan,

who for generations were the most powerful force on this peninsula.

Their rule came to an end in 1646,

when this castle was besieged by the infamous Campbells,

a siege which ended with a guarantee of clemency for the Lamonts.

But the Campbells reneged on that promise with horrific consequences.

The castle was sacked, burned

and 200 of the Lamont clan were unceremoniously slaughtered.

What a stark reminder of our turbulent past.

You know, I've been so blessed with the weather today.

I honestly can't think of anywhere else I would rather be,

with the open road ahead of me and the long shadows of the evening

and just over that hill the thought of a hearty meal and a soft bed.

I'm off to Tighnabruaich.

The Cowal Peninsula is often called Argyle's Secret Coast

and not surprisingly is little known to most walkers.

That's something one local resident, Jim McLuckie,

is on a mission to change.

After 27 years in the Army, he put down his roots here,

just north of Tighnabruaich.

When I came here, I was very aware that the likes of Fort William

and the Lake District to the south were absolutely chock-a-block.

I just thought, "Here's a superb area which is so easily accessible,

"but unknown." So what could we do to make it more attractive to walkers?

From that came the idea of a long-distance footpath from one

end of the peninsula to the other end of the peninsula.

-We're just coming into the old Victorian Caladh estate...

-Uh-huh.

..and of course

a lot of these huge trees would've been planted in Victorian times.

They were bringing seeds from everywhere - you get the giant

trees from North America

and all of the stuff that the then botanists were bringing back.

Jim's spent a lifetime exploring mountains

and wild places around the world.

It was a passion that started

when he was a young lad growing up in the shadow of the Pentland Hills.

My brother and his two friends went up there with me one day

and they wanted to climb a cliff,

which I decided was a bit too much for me, so I was instructed to

walk round the side of the cliff and we never met up at the top.

So there I was aged 11, I think, on the top of the Pentland Hills

thinking, "Hmm, right, I'd better make my way home."

HE CHUCKLES So that started me off.

I made my way home from there and I thought, "Well, I quite enjoyed that,

"I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself."

My brother wasn't so popular when we got home, because by the time

-he got home crying, at night...

-Having spent ages looking for you.

Having spent ages combing the Pentland Hills for his wee brother -

I was in bed.

THEY LAUGH

So is this where we leave the beach?

This is it, this is where we go into the jungle.

The jungle. I was just going to say that...

-but I thought I'd let you say it.

-The woodland path, shall we say.

It means that we can get up over this next headland.

So we've got a bit of a handrail here.

What does that indicate?

Oh, well, I've heard it described

as the Hinterstoisser Traverse, which I believe is on the Eiger.

-Ah, which is on the North Face of the Eiger.

-I don't think it's quite at that level,

but there's a little bit of a ledge along here and it's a 10ft drop.

Many people regard this as being one of the highlights of this

section of the route and I tend to agree with them.

It's fairly straightforward, run your hand along the landline

and there is actually an awkward step here, which is a big step up,

so you can use the rope to give yourself a pull

and then you're up and over.

-Was there originally a path up here or...

-Yes.

..is it one's been created?

Yes, there was a path right the way through here.

Because of the school back there at Caladh the local farmer's

family at the other end of this path used to come through here every day.

And obviously at times it's become overgrown...

..but the path has always been here, it's always been a public footpath.

The route is very, very varied,

from this lovely coastal-community scenery right the way through

to the Arrochar Alps and where you're walking through fantastic countryside

with Munros all around you.

-We've got a hole in the wall here, Cameron.

-OK.

And it's duck down and get through and the next bit is the same,

but I like it.

A bit of a fat man's challenge.

THEY LAUGH

Oh, yes, this looks a bit difficult.

-It looks like a fat man's challenge.

-This is a tight squeeze, Cameron.

If you're wild camping and you've got a big rucksack on, you might

have to unship it to get through there.

-I'll just take a deep breath in.

-A deep breath, yes.

Try and slim myself down...

..and emerge on the other side.

You can do another little bit of jungle bashing for the next 400 yards or so.

Tell me, what does this area of Cowal mean to you personally?

Oh, it means everything.

Apart from anything else I'm a Lamont, I belong to the Lamont clan.

I may not have been terribly aware of that

when I was a boy in Midlothian, but I became aware of it

when I came to Lamont country and joined the Lamont Society.

All right, another wee awkward bit here, Cameron. Just mind your step.

-This is where poles are handy.

-Poles are essential, really, aren't they?

And, as I said, they become more like crutches the further on we go.

More like Zimmers in my case.

THEY LAUGH

One of Jim McLuckie's aims

when he planned this route was that it would link a number

of historical sites between the ferry at Portavadie and Loch Lomond.

I've been following the Cowal Way along the length of the lovely Glendaruel,

which is really an extraordinarily beautiful long glen.

But at the Clachan of Glendaruel I saw a signpost pointing out

this church and there's a couple of things I just want to check out here.

This is Kilmodan Church,

the cell of St Modan who was a contemporary of Columba.

But what I want to have a look at here is...apparently there are three

entrances to this church,

three entrances in which three separate families would enter.

And while they wanted to go in and talk to God

they just didn't want to talk to each other.

While the church is really quite unusual, this is what I really

want to show you, tucked away in a little corner of the graveyard.

Wow, look at the treasures in here, these wonderful stone carvings.

These date back to the 14th and 15th century and it's

believed there was a school of stone carvers near Loch Awe and these

people travelled the district carving beautiful stones like this,

making freestanding Celtic crosses, carving out gravestones and making effigies.

They were very much the travelling journeymen of the day,

Just absolutely fantastic.

I could stay here for hours,

but I've a schedule to keep and other places to see.

This is the kind of landscape that takes me

back to many of my earliest explorations into the hills.

Growing up in Glasgow, I'd yearned for those days

when I could escape from the bustle of the city

and lose myself in the mountains.

You know, after all the low-level walking

on the Cowal Way, it's wonderful to get a little bit of height.

I've just climbed up over the old hill path that

runs from Lochgoilhead and down to Ardgartan on the shores of Loch Long.

It's just great to be up here.

I've got Ben Donich away behind me here and the Brack over there

and then I can see, away in the distance,

like the beacon that it is, Ben Lomond.

So from here my route goes down through the Forest of Ardgartan.

And, you know, the Forestry Commission have done a fantastic job here creating lots of

waymarking trails and car parks

and I hope one of those trails might take

me along the lochside to Arrochar, where I might even get

a wee cup of coffee.

Well, I made it to Arrochar and I'm delighted to find a cup of coffee

with my name on it.

I'm almost at the end of the Cowal Way now.

I won't be seeing many more of these little signs.

I've just passed the old farm at Corriegrogan,

here in the very heart of the Arrochar Alps, an area that's been

very prominent in the development of outdoor activities in Scotland.

There have been three great waves of exploration in the Arrochar Alps.

Away back at the end of the 19th century when the pioneers sailed up

Loch Long on steamers, or else they sailed up Loch Lomond to Tarbert and

then climbed the hills of the Cobbler and Beinn Narnain and Beinn Ime.

And then during the years of the Great Depression,

when the guys would escape the tedium of the dole queue and come

north here and climb these hills that were pretty accessible to Glasgow.

And then again in the 1950s, when a bunch

of Clydeside shipyard workers, who called themselves the

Creagh Dhu Mountaineering Club,

really pushed the standards of rock climbing

in Scotland by some of the great routes that they put up on the

steep flanks of the Cobbler.

Now it's time to leave the Arrochar Alps, but I'll

still be surrounded by big hills as I head north through The Trossachs.

Ahead of me is the largest inland stretch of water in Britain

and one of Scotland's most famous lochs.

Not being much a swimmer, I've decided to cross Loch Lomond in the style

of the medieval monks or some of those early mountaineering pioneers.

I'm heading for Inversnaid, where I hope to renew acquaintanceship

with a dear old friend of mine - the West Highland Way.

The West Highland Way was created away back in 1980 and it's fair to

say at the time many of us in the outdoor community in Scotland

weren't very happy about the idea of a signposted long-distance trail.

We felt it was a foreign concept in a country where we already had

a de facto freedom to roam.

But today tens of thousands of people walk the route every year.

It's been a phenomenal success.

I've walked it four or five times myself and I've always

thoroughly enjoyed it.

Towards the end of the 19th century,

the poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins

came here to Inversnaid

during a time when he was working in the deprived areas in Glasgow.

And when he was here he wrote a poem,

a poem that has become one of the great homages to wild nature.

"Where would the world be once bereft of wet and wildness?

"Oh, let them be left, wildness and wet.

"Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."

I strongly recommend you get a hold of that poem and read it

and catch his vision

of the white horse charging down the Inversnaid Burn, it's tremendous.

I just wish I could write poetry like that.

Well, well, well.

You know, I've spent hours,

literally hours, looking for Rob Roy's cave

and I've always searched on that side of the path.

I never actually thought of looking on the Loch side.

But they've got a signpost now, so it must be true.

I really have to go down and have a look.

Rob Roy, the legendary Chief of the Clan MacGregor.

Let's find his cave.

I think I've found it,

although it's more of a niche under the rocks than a proper cave

and not unlike hundreds of other niches under rocks in the whole area.

I'm a wee bit sceptical because not that long ago I discovered that,

although this is known as Rob Boy's cave, a number of years ago

it was known as King Robert's cave after Robert the Bruce.

And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind

that at some time in history

it's been known as Bonnie Prince Charlie's cave.

It seems we've got hundreds of Rob Roy's caves,

Robert the Bruce's caves and Bonnie Prince Charlie's caves

all over the Western Highlands.

And I have this great fear that visitors to Scotland

will start to think all our national heroes were Troglodytes.

Or, even worse, that 200 years ago we all lived in caves.

Loch Lomond forms part of the Highland Fault Line,

the major geological divide

separating the Highlands from the Lowlands.

I'm now two thirds around of the way up the new Western Way,

but who's counting the miles?

Certainly not me,

because every step through this wonderful landscape is a delight.

This is my kind of country, and I'm not alone in thinking that.

The romantic poets simply loved Loch Lomond and surrounding features,

like this, the Falls of Falloch in Glen Falloch.

William Wordsworth came here with his sister, Dorothy,

and their good friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

And, while Coleridge waxed lyrical about the falls

and how it sounded like the rumbling voice of the mountain,

William and his sister, Dorothy, weren't so enthused.

They said Glen Falloch should be interpreted

as "the veil of the awful sounds".

But it has to be said, Dorothy did go on to be

a bit of a serial complainer.

Ever onwards, my route continues up the West Highland Way

to Bridge of Orchy, before it turns left

through Glen Kinglass and the magnificent Black Mount hills.

Then it's along the shore of Loch Etive,

before a final stretch down Glen Lonan to my finish point at Oban.

Someone who loves these wild places as much as I do is Andrew Greig.

He's an award-winning novelist, a poet,

a musician and a mountaineer who's explored not only Scotland

but also the great ranges of the Himalaya.

These landscapes have formed a consistent background to his work.

That's an eclectic range of interests,

so is there a common thread that binds them all together?

I was thinking, I'm not very good at any of them

but I stand up for my poetry.

But I never feel myself a proper mountaineer, I never was.

I kind of followed round the people who were very good

and tried not to get killed.

But you do have a passion for landscape?

Oh, aye, this means the world to me, it always has.

I was brought up in the country near Bannockburn,

and we used to go, every summer, we'd go off to the West Coast.

And I just very, very early on went into these kind of dreamy states.

I found - and I still do when I walk -

the head gradually empties

and I stop thinking and just start being here.

And then you start to notice that the silence

isn't actually very silent, there's stuff going on all the time.

And after about two or three hours of walking I not only get tired,

I then start having different kinds of thoughts.

They kind of announce themselves and that's often where poems come from.

Would you agree that the Scottish landscape

has very rich pickings for a writer?

Well, yes, you can set stories here,

because the thing about the Scottish hills, they're the right size.

It's important. You've been in the Alps and the Himalayas.

We know they're too big to love, to have a personal relationship with.

English hills are a wee bit on the small side.

These are just the right size.

There's not a hill in Scotland you can't go up and down in a day,

but they're small enough, at the same time, to have a human history

and human connections to them.

It's a funny thing, it's only a tenth of the population,

if that, of Scotland that lives in the Highlands,

but it's a huge part of our psyche.

'Many years ago, Andrew struck up an unlikely friendship

'with one of Scotland's top mountaineers, Mal Duff.'

'That led to him joining a series of Himalayan expeditions -

'somewhat strange, you might think, for someone who doesn't claim

'to be a high altitude climber.'

I'd written this long poem called Men On Ice.

This is purely metaphorical, like most poetry is.

I'd done some hillwalking, but I'd no intention of climbing anything.

I met this guy in a pub, Mal Duff, and he said,

"Oh, you're Andy Grieg, you wrote that Men On Ice.

"I'm going to the Himalayas to climb the Muztagh Tower in a few months.

"Do you want to come and write about it?"

And because we'd both had several drinks,

I said, "Oh sure, that sounds fine."

We went off our separate ways into the night,

I never thought I'd see him again - this is true -

and then there was a bang on my door and he walked in the house

about a week later in South Queensferry

and said, "It's there if you want it."

So I said, "What?" He said, "Oh, the Muztagh Tower."

And at this point I said, "Well, actually, Mal,

"I've never climbed anything and I'm scared of heights."

And he did look a wee bit taken aback, and then he said,

"Well, you'll get used to it."

So he said, "Well, I'm going to have to...

"There's no question of you going to the top, that's a serious mountain.

"But the call at 21,000 will do fine

"and you've got a crash course coming up ahead of you in Glencoe."

And that winter had a terrific storm.

A couple of army guys died in it, you probably remember,

and the whole place was closed for about four days.

We were climbing the day that storm was just about to begin

and I'd done my first route with Malcolm,

and we got to the top of it and I said, "What's that called?"

And he said, "Well, call it what you want, it's new."

So my first route I did with Mal Duff was a first ascent.

It's in the guide books, I'm so chuffed.

I mean, I just seconded, I was following on,

squawking and doing what I was told.

How important has been the climbing experience

in your career as a writer?

Well, it changed my life. It made me write prose.

I had no intention of writing prose.

Norman MacCaig always used to say to me,

"Not writing prose, I hope, Andrew."

And I could always say, "No, I don't touch the filthy stuff, Norman."

So I was a poet, and therefore poor,

but, by that mistake I was telling you about,

because someone mistook poetry for the truth,

that got me involved in Himalayan and the deal with the Himalayas,

I had to write a prose book.

And I discovered I liked writing prose.

I liked it because it had a readership, a much bigger one.

Also I could make a living by it,

and, above all, probably, I could sit down every day and do it.

You can't do that with poetry.

So most of the time with poetry you feel a complete fraud,

because you're not writing, so you're a waste of space, really.

Whereas the prose books are only done by writing five, six days a week

and I do somewhere have a latent Scottish work ethic.

I can look the world in the face and say, "Yes, I write books,

"the kind you can read."

What I love about physical activity is it locates me in the present

and that is what my books, I think, are all about.

It's reawakening you and re-enchanting you to being here.

BOTH: # On Raglan Road of an autumn day

# I saw her first and knew

# That her dark hair would weave a snare

# That I might one day rue

# I saw the danger, yet I walked

# Along the enchanted way

# And I said let grief be a fallen leaf

# At the dawning of the day. #

I don't think there's any doubt that the West Highland Way

is one of the most popular walks in Scotland,

if not the most popular walk in Scotland.

And, on a day like this, with blue skies and beautiful colours,

it's easy to understand why.

I've come over the Mam Carraigh from Bridge of Orchy

and arrayed across the horizon

are the Munros of the Black Mount Deer Forest,

culminating in this big hill behind me here -

Stob Ghabhar, the Hill of the Goats.

That's a hill I first climbed as a spotty 18-year-old

and I've been up and down there so many times over the years,

in all conditions and all weathers, and I have to say

it's always been a real friend to me,

it's always been very kind to me.

And nestling in a little hollow below the mountain there

is an establishment that's been offering hospitality

to travellers for well over 200 years.

It's called the Inveroran Hotel and that's where I'm bound for now.

Today's proprietors have been looking after walkers

and other guests for the last five years.

Originally from Northern Ireland, Elaine Muirhead fell in love

with the peaceful surroundings, stunning scenery

and the wildlife that makes full use of her garden.

She's also proud of the hotel's history, even though

some of the reviews back then were not flattering.

We have different writings from people who have been here,

famous people who have been here,

Darwin being one of them,

Dorothy Wordsworth being another one.

I think initially she was very happy to have the comfort of Inveroran

and the fact that there was a fire, but she was less than complimentary,

let's say, about the food that was offered to her.

She did say that the bread and the eggs were fusty.

But even before it was a hotel drovers would stop here.

They came all the way from Fort William

all the way down to Glasgow, so a considerable journey

for them with a herd of cattle.

And in the original building the drovers came in

and they had a fire and it was like two levels,

and I think all of their cattle were on the first floor

and the drovers slept above the cattle.

Do you ever lie here at night

and think of what it must have been like

perhaps in the early 18th century?

Guests have often said to me that

they've felt presences in certain rooms

and, you know, whether you believe in that kind of thing or not,

this place has such a history and such energy

that maybe there is something in that.

I'd never be one to say that there is

but maybe, maybe there is something there.

At this point my route parts company with the West Highland Way

as I'm turning west into the Black Mount hills.

It's a wild and uncompromising area

and one of my favourite parts of the country.

And this homestead is about as remote as it gets.

Four years ago Llinos Proctor moved here,

where she now lives with her stalker husband and two young children.

We're quite privileged to be able to live here, really.

It can be hard at times in winter,

but it's not bad waking up every morning to this view

and the wildlife that we get on the doorstep.

We get hen harriers coming through

in the autumn through our garden sometimes,

and obviously all the stags and the hinds, the red deer

that are just around and about all the time.

You get to see the changing of the seasons, with the colours

changing on the hills and it's a pretty special place to be.

'Originally from Anglesey, Llinos came up to Scotland in 2003.

'She's an ecologist and has worked in many parts of the Highlands,

'but this place is very special.'

In the autumn we're woken up by stags roaring in the night.

In the springtime you get the skylarks singing above your head

while you're hanging washing out on the line,

so you can't escape the nature and the wildlife here.

If you didn't have the background that you have in ecology

and natural history, how difficult would it be

to settle in an area like this?

It's hard for me to answer that question

because I grew up walking with my dad in Snowdonia and the Anglesey Coast,

so I'm used to being outside and walking,

I've always loved hills and I've always felt

they've been part of me, I suppose,

and what makes me happy is being out in the hills

and enjoying the landscape.

-That's not too deep.

-No, it's quite shallow, this bit.

I'll follow you cos that looks like the best way.

This Black Mount Deer Forest is well known amongst hill walkers

for all the Munros, but what sort of work do you do here?

I did some work here this summer

setting up a habitat monitoring scheme for the estate

looking at the impact the red deer grazing is having on the heather.

And I think they're going to use that information

to manage the deer herd in the future.

A lot of sporting estates are a lot more forward-thinking now

and they realise that the conservation of the landscape

has a knock-on effect on the health of deer herd

and they realise that they have to manage both those things

in order to have a healthy deer population.

It's not exactly hard work going out in beautiful places

and setting up quadrats and looking at the heather.

You've confirmed to me something I've always suspected -

that ecologists just like to be out in nice places.

-Yes.

-I'm sure there's more to it than that.

I'm sure if you wanted to be better paid

you could sit in an office all day, but I'm happy to stick

with the conservation work and the ecology work.

You get to go to lots of far flung places where you wouldn't necessarily

go on a walk to look at the habitats, and that's quite nice to get you out

into the different corners of the estate and see some new places.

The very word "ecology" is quite wide ranging.

I suppose different people would interpret it differently,

but for me it's not just species-specific.

It's about seeing how everything interacts

and has a knock-on effect on each other.

So it's not just about red deer here, it's about what the red deer

do to the heather and the vegetation, and then that'll have

a knock-on effect on other species that use here, as well.

And, of course, having the deer and the carrion when they die

or are left out on the hill after stalking brings in eagles and ravens.

It's just how everything fits together and you can't expect

to manage one aspect of it without it affecting everything else.

How important are landscapes like this to you?

Can you ever see yourself going

and living in a city or something like that?

SHE LAUGHS

I'd be hard pushed to think of somewhere else I would rather be.

There's something special about here.

You know, that chat I had there with Llinos

is probably just exactly what I was needing

entering a big, wild, remote area like this one in Glen Kinglass.

Her enthusiasm, her bubbling enthusiasm for living in such a wild

and remote place was intoxicating, really quite infectious

and I left here with a renewed enthusiasm

for the rest of the walk down to Oban.

But I was also passing some old friends,

some of the hills looking down I know quite well -

Stob Ghabhar, the Hill of the Goat,

Meall nan Eun, the rounded Hill of the Birds,

and, most intriguing of all,

Stob Coir'an Albannaich, the Peak of the Corrie of the Scotsman,

or the Highlander.

Anybody who has seen any of my long walks on television

will know that I have a particular fondness for sitting up

against the gable end of an old building,

having a brew and letting my imagination run riot.

I'm in a little settlement called Narrachan

and there are half a dozen remains of former cothouses here.

I find it curious that, in this land that I'm describing as wild

and remote and empty, that people lived their lives out here.

And, although it might be empty of people today,

you can still sense the ghosts of those people,

you can still feel the spirit of place.

On a more pragmatic level, I'm delighted that I'm now

in the final miles of Glen Kinglass, where the track trundles down

towards the sea, or in this case a rather special sea loch.

And I'm looking forward to getting the salt tang in my lungs again.

I'm so pleased to see Loch Etive, even on a grey afternoon like this.

I think it's one of our finest sea lochs

and I just love the way it bites deep into the mountains here.

And you can see the steep slopes of Beinn Trilleachan on the left

and the equally steep slopes of Beinn Starav on the other side.

And it's said that this is all

the storied land of Deirdre of the Sorrows.

Deirdre was an early Celtic princess

who was betrothed to Conchobar mac Nessa,

the High King of Ulster,

but instead she chose to elope to Scotland with her lover, Naoise,

one of the three sons of Uisneach,

hereditary Knights of the Red Branch.

It's said that on the slopes of Beinn Starav she lived out her days

chasing the red deer and watching the golden eagles soar.

But eventually they had to return to Ulster.

As she sailed down the waters of Loch Etive, she wrote a song,

and it was full of the longing

and the love of leaving a place behind,

a place that you love dearly.

It's a long, long walk down Loch Etiveside

but I'm almost at the village of Taynuilt,

and beyond the village I'll be onto the last dozen miles or so

to journey's end at Oban.

But just beyond Taynuilt there's a place I'm very keen to visit,

a place with a really interesting history.

I think you'll be intrigued.

I'm heading for what's known simply as Angus's Garden.

It was the creation of Betty and Neil MacDonald back in 1957.

It's a memorial to their journalist son

who was killed in Cyprus the previous year.

Today their grandson, Nick Charlton, lives here.

Although he wasn't born at the time of his uncle's death,

he knows not only the impact this incident had on his family

but also how, over half a century later,

that fateful event is still shrouded in mystery.

Well, it all stems from my Uncle Angus.

He took a post with The Cyprus Times to work as a war correspondent

and within a couple of weeks of arriving there

was shot dead in the street close to where he worked.

It's not that clear what actually happened.

His colleague at The Cyprus Times was Nicos Sampson,

who then went on to become very active in supporting

the Greek movement in Cyprus.

He became de facto President for a few days in the '70s, much later on.

And he'd got a reputation in the '50s for being

the first reporter on the scene at any number of killings at that time.

There is a suggestion that Sampson was first on the scene

of these shootings because he'd actually shot the person!

-There is that suggestion.

-Quite incredible.

It would seem incredible, but credible, too.

15 or 20 people were killed, I think, in similar circumstances.

He was tried, I think,

for the shootings of British Police Officers,

but acquitted, basically because there'd been

forced confessions or torture.

What were your grandparents' thoughts on him?

The story was he was shot by a sniper.

I think that's slightly disingenuous.

There were people who he was working with that were directly involved

in shootings, and Sampson clearly got the scoops.

So is this a garden of remembrance?

I think it is, but also a garden of forgetfulness.

I think when you see what's around here

it is a diversion from your everyday life

and takes you away from some of your troubles.

The mysteries of history always intrigue me

and the story of what really happened to Angus McDonald in 1956

will now almost certainly never be solved.

But this large wild garden created in his memory is an inspiring

natural monument to someone whose life ended tragically early.

You know, I've actually been dreading

these final dozen miles down Glen Lonan,

because it's a tarmac road and I don't really like walking

long distances on tarmac roads.

But it's actually not that bad. It's a very quiet road

and it's taken me through this lovely, crumpled,

low-lying landscape with lots of little rocky knolls

and some really fine woodland.

And, you know, I think I can smell the sea.

There's a lovely sense of history here in Glen Lonan.

The hillsides on either side of the glen are positively littered

with ancient artefacts, tumuli,

old cairns, doons, the Celtic forts.

And there's none more impressive than the 13ft tall monolith

of Clach Diarmuid, the Stone or the Pillar of Diarmuid.

Diarmuid was one of the great heroes of Celtic folk mythology

and he was a contemporary of the great Finn MacCool,

the leader of the Fianna Warriors.

And Diarmuid came to prominence because he ran away with Grainne,

who had been betrothed to Finn MacCool.

And it's said that this big standing stone marks his final resting place.

But also this road later in history, between the 11th and 13th century,

became known as the Royal Road

because it was down here that Scottish kings were carried

when they had died and were being taken to their final resting place

on St Columba's Holy Island of Iona.

And it's kind of strange for me to finish this long journey of mine

on this Royal Road and in the footsteps, if you like,

of royalty and of Celtic heroes.

I'm now in the final two miles of the New Western Way.

I know I've said this before,

but this is a route I'd recommend wholeheartedly.

It's been a fantastic experience, both a journey of discovery

and a chance to revisit places I've known through the years.

I started by climbing to the top of that lighthouse

at the Mull of Galloway,

and I'm finishing it at an equally distinctive landmark -

McCaig's Tower high above Oban.

Well, that's it - 250 miles,

all the way from the most southerly point in Scotland to Oban.

And what a memorable journey it's been -

some fabulous coastline walking, some great hills

and the opportunity to visit five very different islands.

You know, you can do this whole walk in a oner if you want.

Or, if you fancied it, you could break it down

into bite-sized chunks, maybe five different weeks.

However you do it, I think you'll find it to be a great adventure,

seeing some of the finest landscapes in this beautiful country of ours.

And, as I stand here looking out over Oban Bay

towards the Isle of Kerrera, I have the genesis of an idea in my mind

that next year my walking project won't finish here but begin here.

I hope you'll join me then, bye-bye.